'It is any wonder White Oak is said to be the best prepared domestic coal marketed from W. VA., when you look at this picture of White egg coal taken as it is being loaded inot a a railroad car? Perfectly sized; perfectly screened and quality unsurpassed. No wonder it is the most popular sized coal sold in the domestic market.'
'The size and design of the shaker screens now in use at the White Oak mines are the best that an experience of twenty years in preparing Smokeless Coal has found to be the best and yield a satisfactory screened and sized coal. A screen must first be of ample size to take care of the amount of tonnage passing over it, because of crowding and overloading a screen results in poorly screened and poorly sized coal. The screen shown in this picture is handling 400 tons per hour and still has ample screening space to spare. The flow of coal over these White Oak shaker screens is controlled by a feeder which cannot be become stopped up by coal sticking in the slots because the slots are wider at the base than at the top and are therefore self clearing. The lips keep the coal turning over and over so it is impossible for slack to ride over on the larger pieces. The coal never falls; it is always sliding while being screened which helps prevent breakage. Note the uniform size and firm character of the lump coal which has passed over the egg screen shown in this picture.'
'Coal at all White Oak shaft mines is handled on self dumping cages, which handle coal uniformly and with a minimum of breakage. Note how evenly the coal is flowing from the mine car. Much more rapid course than the picture indicates, but it shows how well designed the equipment must be to handle the coal in such a splendid manner.'
'All sizes of 'White' prepared coal is loaded into railroad cars with loading booms to minimize breakage and preserve the best appearance of the coal. It would be useless to carefully mine and screen our coal if we did not use proper care in loading it into the railroad cars. These booms lower to the bottom of the car when it is first placed under the tipple for loading, and raised from time to time as the car fills up. Note how perfectly screened this lump coal appears on the boom! Not a sign of slack to be seen. Treated for dust if desired.'
'This is an end view of one of our new steel mine cars on a cage at one of the White Oak Shaft mines, and the signal has just been given to hoist it to the surface, 450 feet up! These electric equipped hoists can hoist a car every twenty seconds and dump it! The cars are placed on the cages and automatically by creeper chains and car stops. One man operates the signals and car stops and chains.'
'The sheltered construction of the processing equipment makes it difficult to photograph the coal in flow through the circuits, but this is a flash of the raw coal feed pouring into the 16.5 foot Chance cone. In this cone-shaped vessel, a mixture of sand and water is kept at a controlled gravity by agitation and by control of the proportions. This gravity is set to separate the clean coal from the refuse. The lighter coal is floated on top of the mix and guided to a discharge to continue its processing, which includes desanding, scrubbing, sizing, and moisture removal. The heavier refuse meanwhile sinks to the bottom and is passed to the refuse disposal system. This large cone has a capacity of 500 tons per hour.'
'On the top level of the heat drier building showing, from left to right, the motors, blowers and tops of the cyclones. The vertical tubes are exhaust stacks for the waste heating gases and moisture. The driers themselves are long, vertical tubes, located beneath this deck. A blast of hot gasses dries the coal and the cyclones then separate the coal from the waste gasses and moisture. Purpose of the drying operation is to reduce the moisture acquired in coal washing, 'or from the atmosphere during storage on the stock pile', and provide the processing plant with a uniform charge material.
Raw Coal Conveyor Belt at Georgetown Preparation Plant
Description:
'This enclosed raw coal conveyor belt starts the coal on its journey through the Georgetown Preparation Belt. The belt is 641 feet long and moves at a speed of just above 10 miles per hour. The coal is taken to the top of the plant, where it is given a preliminary sorting by size and then sent through one of the three cleaning circuits incorporated in the preparation system.'
